PC won't boot on cold start, ok on restart..

[Michel S.]

Hi !

I made a fresh install of XP-Pro (sp2 slipstreamed) on an old system
D815EEA (P-III 733, 512 MB Ram, 40 GB WD HDD) system.

When I cold boot the system, I randomly but constantly get one of the
following situations:

1) Blank screen total freeze (keyboard locked) after POST
2) A message about missing or corrupted
"windows/system32/config/system"
3) A message about an invalid 'osloadpartition' parameter
4) It boots flawlessy

In any of the fisrst 3 cases, if I press the 'reset' switch on the
computer, the system boots correctly and everything works fine. The
same thing happens if I shut down the machine and restart it after a
*short* period of time (ie: 2 minutes).

If I just perform a warm boot (start/shutdown/restart), with or without
a visit into the BIOS setup, it always boots correctly.

I ran a 48 hour Memtest32 on the memory sticks without a single error;
I don't suspect the HDD to be the culprit too: it is freshly
partitioned / formatted / chkdsked without a single error (and I tried
both NTFS and Fat32 partitions).

Except for this cold boot problem, the
computer/applications/peripherals/etc operates correctly.

I googled a bit this moning, and while I found some posts with similar
situations, I still have to find one with a working solution.

Any idea ?

Thanks

 

[John A]

Check if there is a BIOS update for your system

John Allen

 

[Michel S.]

It's the latest availiable.. Thanks !

Après mûre réflexion, John A a écrit :

 

[Timothy Daniels]

Check the lithium battery on the motherboard. It might
be discharged after sitting for a few minutes, but it
might hold enough charge after the system runs to
enable it to power the ROM for a quick restart.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Michel S.]

Thanks for the suggestion.. I tried a new battery, at no avail.

I'm currently trying with another HDD, replacing the 40Gb WD with an
"old" 20Gb Quantum Fireball. While the D815EEA BIOS doc states that it
supports drives larger than 8.4Gb up to 137Gb, I wonder if it may be
experiencing a problem with disks larger than 32Gb ?

To be continued ?


Timothy Daniels a utilisé son clavier pour écrire :

 

[Michel S.]

Finally, I found something. Nothing to do with the disk
capacity.

Someone suggested to revert the PC to its initial state (128Mb RAM)
and... the problem disappeared !!

What I dont understand is that the full 512Mb test without a single
error in a 48 hour+ Memtest86 v3.2 run.

And how putting in an additional 384Mb RAM in good condition can cause
the disk to fail on a cold boot.

Is this twilight zone ? ;o)


Michel S. avait soumis l'idée :